Archea's Base Rush Problem...
Soul_Rider
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
OK, Scrajm brought up the issue of Base Rushes being continually applied against them.
My take on this is that the reason Archea get base rushed so much is because they leave the opponents team with no other choice. I know it is a cheap strategy, but they put the other teams under so much pressure they obviously feel it is there only chance.
The cost of a failed base rush does need to be higher, to prevent it's abuse, but Archea have also got to realise, they are normally being base-rushed out of desperation....
Maybe if they weren't so good at dominating the other teams would deploy different tactics.
Of course, I feel there is another side to this issue...
A base rush is a neccesity to win the game. Marines tech is generally all stored at one location, in their spawn, while aliens have to spread themselves across the map.
Taking down alien tech without always base rushing is possible, with ninja structure attacks etc, but for aliens to take down marine tech, they have to rush the base. I believe this will be a problem as long as marines have a single base, or most of their tech in one base.
Upshot of this, I don't blame the teams, but the way the game plays out. As marines, you have to expect base rushes to take down your equipment, otherwise Aliens will be letting you tech in peace, and why should they allow that?
Problem is finding a solution. Sure you could go back to aliens waiting half a year to respawn, but that was OP for the marines. I think the spawn timers are about right at teh moment, the issue that needs to be addressed is the single centralised placement of all marine tech, which forces aliens to rush base to remove tech.
Let me know what you guys think, and how this issue could be precluded from happening...
My take on this is that the reason Archea get base rushed so much is because they leave the opponents team with no other choice. I know it is a cheap strategy, but they put the other teams under so much pressure they obviously feel it is there only chance.
The cost of a failed base rush does need to be higher, to prevent it's abuse, but Archea have also got to realise, they are normally being base-rushed out of desperation....
Maybe if they weren't so good at dominating the other teams would deploy different tactics.
Of course, I feel there is another side to this issue...
A base rush is a neccesity to win the game. Marines tech is generally all stored at one location, in their spawn, while aliens have to spread themselves across the map.
Taking down alien tech without always base rushing is possible, with ninja structure attacks etc, but for aliens to take down marine tech, they have to rush the base. I believe this will be a problem as long as marines have a single base, or most of their tech in one base.
Upshot of this, I don't blame the teams, but the way the game plays out. As marines, you have to expect base rushes to take down your equipment, otherwise Aliens will be letting you tech in peace, and why should they allow that?
Problem is finding a solution. Sure you could go back to aliens waiting half a year to respawn, but that was OP for the marines. I think the spawn timers are about right at teh moment, the issue that needs to be addressed is the single centralised placement of all marine tech, which forces aliens to rush base to remove tech.
Let me know what you guys think, and how this issue could be precluded from happening...
Comments
The best way to actually counter the initial base rushes is that there needs to be some egg-cost by doing it. If you decide to do a 6 man rush, maybe you shouldn't have 6 people the next time around. The only problem with egg management in that regard is that if you have close spawns, it can become even more easy to egg-lock the other team.
But yeah, needs some tweaking. None the less though, I think the game is to be played on the games terms as it is in a current build. If people dont like it in that build, they have all the right to simply not play until it's fixed.
However i don't think this can be fixed simply by tuning the spawn timers because marines can easily build more IPs but it's more difficult for aliens to build more hives. I was credited in the most recent changelog for the alien spawn change: <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Reduced egg generation rate at hives by 25% - to help address the "zerg machine of doom" (thanks Zeikko!).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
However i don't think this will fix the issue because aliens will usually drop the second hive in the beginning of the game which double their spawn rate immediately after the hive is up. Here's the spawn mechanics part of the email i sent to Charlie that lead to this change in build 221:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Spawn mechanics have been changed quite a lot lately but I still haven't seen the fix that me and many other players have been waiting for a long time. That is making spawning times not to scale linearly with the number of hives/ips. It didn't scale linearly in the later versions of NS either. I just don't think the game can be balanced if marines spawn 100 % faster by spending 15 res on an IP. I think it would make more sense if the second IP and hive boosted the spawn rate for example by 50 % instead of 100 %. This would hopefully make the game less of a crazy deathmatch and also help aliens with their spawning problems with one hive but not make them an unstoppable zerg machine with 2 hives. I haven't done all of the math required discuss about the whole spawning mechanic but i think this kind of change would allow you to tune the other spawning values for a better gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Other thing that needs to be thought again is the whole wave spawn mechanic. I think the biggest thing to think here is the fact that aliens spawn at the same speed no matter how many players are dead. That should not be the case. If a whole team dies in a rush they should be punished in a form of longer spawning.
I also think the CC and power nodes could use more health since they go down in couple of seconds with good teamwork.
Also I'm not sure if you can call the baserushing desperation since it's the best alien strategy currently. There's no reason to fight the marines because they're so OP in the early game and you can't hold more than 1-2 RTs anyways. Just skip them and go for the base. Marines will lose all their map control and possibly the whole game.
Of course i'm not saying that we didn't do any mistakes and leave us open for baserushes. I don't think that's what Scrajm meant either. I just think that baserushing is the best strategy to go as alien and it's not very exciting in the long run.
At the moment in 6v6 marines do not have enough firepower to take down cara onos and hold the map at the same time.
I totally agree, the marines especially spawn very fast when they have multiple IPs. There is little down time after killing the enemy to try and deal damage to their buildings, you actually get more time if you just let them walk far away from the base. That just encourages base rushes rather than killing the enemy.
Yeah. I find it funny that one of the most repeated command in our teamspeak is: "Don't kill them!"
It's good that positioning matters but dying should matter too. Our players have also typed kill to console in couple of matches just to move faster from place A to B.
The 1st IP placement isn't decided by the commander. In NS1 a good base layout was vital for defending baserushes. It's not necessary the biggest deal in NS2, but takes away from the defensive possibilities nevertheless.
Aliens have too little to defend. Unless the marines actually threaten a hive early game, there's very little for the aliens to defend on map. Having a bunch of vulnerable nodes on the map could give marines some way to punish less succesful baserushes. In NS1 you pretty much had to go push an alien node early - not necessarily to kill it, but to force aliens to shift their focus on defending.
Obviously also the performance and hitreg play a huge deal. It's far less inviting to rush a base if your average marine can actually take out 2-3 skulks with vanilla weaponry when given the positioning.
Mines should be avaible right away. In terms of baserush defence shotguns would be really useful also - if the rest of the game can handle them. Dropping SG for your baseguard allows you to shift strenght quickly to your base without having to dedicate extra marines there.
But how do you deal with that. You can't say if the whole team dies within a certain time frame of each other, as this situation can occur at different battles in the map.
I don't think the spawn wave situation is that bad since the latest tweaks, I think the bigger problem comes from too short a time being dead. But of course, how can you say to a player that you need to be dead for longer?
Marines could have the PG tweaked so there is a longer cooldown between marine phases, which would stop them all coming back through a PG after dieing, but the bigger problems lie with the aliens. Already they spend more time than is comfortable waiting to spawn in, so it makes it really difficult to delay them from grouping up and attacking again, as keeping them dead longer is just going to be frustrating, as we experienced before.
This is because of the fact that aliens have enough resources to drop a Hive in the beginning of the game and get a leap instantly when the hive is up. Thus aliens never need to build any RTs and in fact if they had to it would be very difficult to play aliens as it's next to impossible to hold RTs outside of your hive rooms due to their low HP and early game marine-skulk imbalance. Combined with the fact that it takes 2 minutes 15 seconds for an alien RT to pay itself off including the Cysts that were dropped to build the RT makes dropping an RT a risky move.
Another thing that I think might help is perhaps a purchasable upgrade for commanders to fortify your base powernode (to make it less of a liability). Something like "electrify powernode" would be cool to see as maybe a 15 t-res upgrade on the p-node (though we'd have to wait till post 1.0 to see anything new like that). And as Archea mentioned the CC health could probably use a little more HP/AP. Yet another option like those before and I think Fana has mentioned is making Mines more accessible early game (via lower research cost or having them available from game start by default - I think the p-res cost is fine).
Yeah, very much so.
In general I think we'd be talking about much healthier gameplay structure if the standard approach would be something like 2-3 nodes before even considering 2nd hive. That just leaves so much more room for the teams to interact and variate.
Baserushing in NS1 was potentially just as rewarding as baserushing currently is in NS2. It gave you a chance to not only recover from a bad situation, but also potentially end the game right then and there. It also gave you a way to punish marines for overextending. These are all valid gameplay mechanics that should be preserved in NS2.
The difference between NS1 and NS2 lie in the risk of baserushing. The risk can be divided into two factors: (a) The risk of the baserush failing and (b) the risk of the marines countering your failed baserush by starting a spawncamp and instantly ending the game in their favor, or killing your resnodes and thereby gaining a decisive advantage. In NS1, both of these were very real dangers. There was a high likelyhood of your baserush failing, and if you failed, there was an even higher likelyhood that you would lose the game.
Compare that to NS2, where baserushes succeed with alarming frequency and even when they fail, the negative consequences for the alien team are slight, if at all existing. It should, then, not be surprising that baserushing is an exceedingly popular tactic in competitive play.
To state the reason why baserushing is a problem in NS2 in one sentence: The risk/reward of baserushing in NS2 is highly biased in the favor of reward.
The game mechanics that cause this risk/reward imbalance can be summed up in the following factors (there may be other factors too, please contribute), some of which influence the (a) factor of the risk, while others influence the (b) factor of the risk:
(1) Alien spawn system (wave spawn, eggs): It doesn't matter if your entire team dies at the same time, you still all spawn in at the same time it takes one dead alien to spawn. Starting a spawncamp is also nigh-impossible unless you've spent a significant amount of time grinding the alien egg population down.
(2) Alien comm: No longer need parts of your team to go gorge and build structures; your economy is not influenced in any way by sending five skulks to the marine base.
(3) Comm-dropped mines have to be researched: Can't drop mines around important structures at the start of the round.
(4) Comm-dropped welders have to be researched: Can't immediately drop a welder if, for example, your command station is severly damaged.
(5) Powernodes: Highly vulnerable structure that serves no other purpose than to enable easy instant wins.
(6) Command station health: Relatively weak compared to alien damage output, allows the aliens to kill it and effectively ending the game before the marines can react.
(7) Instant hive drop: Since instant hive drop is the best alien strategy anyway, and requires no effort from the players to construct, sending all five skulks to the marine base doesn't delay alien tech at all.
(8) Marine skill ceiling bias: Since the marines have a significant advantage in matches between high-level teams, desperation tactics like baserushes become more appealing.
I should also add that we, archaea, weren't complaining about other teams using baserushes against us, as we also use baserushes extensively ourselves. We were trying to show how detrimental they are to gameplay as a whole, both for us and for other teams. Unfortunately Scrajm was really tired and frustrated, which lead to a less-than-fortunate interview.
<!--quoteo(post=1985703:date=Oct 1 2012, 06:31 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Oct 1 2012, 06:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Another thing that I think might help is perhaps a purchasable upgrade for commanders to fortify your base powernode (to make it less of a liability). Something like "electrify powernode" would be cool to see as maybe a 15 t-res upgrade on the p-node (though we'd have to wait till post 1.0 to see anything new like that). And as Archea mentioned the CC health could probably use a little more HP/AP. Yet another option like those before and I think Fana has mentioned is making Mines more accessible early game (via lower research cost or having them available from game start by default - I think the p-res cost is fine).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Features like this will never be viable. Either baserushes are so good that you have to research <feature> (in which case why aren't they automatic?) or baserushes are so weak that you never research <feature> (in which case why are they even in the game?) since strategies are all about picking the build order that has the highest likelyhood of succeeding over many rounds.
I think one of the things marines need to do is separate the IP's A good distance from each other to prevent What I would call a melee advantage for base rushers. I realize that if 8 skulks are split between three Ip's that it still becomes very difficult for marines to spawn without instantly being attacked/killed. But each ip with 2-3 skulks around it is easier to deal with then 8 sitting right next to a cluster of Ip's, giving the aliens a clear advantage in instant melee range.
I also agree that the CC seems to not have enough health, As a skulk I can take down a CC almost as fast as i can take down a RT which to me is unacceptable. Multiply that by 2-8 skulks and you can take down a CC way too quickly by comparison of a alien hive being attacked by 2-8 marines.
Mines were mentioned couple of times. I personally don't like this as early game defense. In NS1 you pretty much had to put mines on base so you won't lose it. There should not be absolutely necessary need for dropping mines or the base should be already mined at the start. As the game goes one I think you should be able to reinforce your base defense with couple packs of mines when felt necessary.
IP range from CC is really short and the 1st IP is placed randomly. Most of the times you just can't really control this, as there isn't that much area to pick IP spots from.
I know I am suggesting that it needs to be fixed. =)
I do realize that some maps are impossible to spread out the ips on, but a few have a little more freedom then the rest. Terminal has a fairly large area for ip placement, when compared to some say command.
Your points are valid, but I'm not sure if just spawn rates would fix such an issue. Either marines invest in early game base rush defense, or they will probably be based rushed, because I think these statements you mentioned kind of hits the nail on the head for the most part:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->(2) Alien comm: No longer need parts of your team to go gorge and build structures; your economy is not influenced in any way by sending five skulks to the marine base.
(7) Instant hive drop: Since instant hive drop is the best alien strategy anyway, and requires no effort from the players to construct, sending all five skulks to the marine base doesn't delay alien tech at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think this is the main reason base rushing is seen so commonly in NS2.
TBH I think RFK would help this problem and more properly punish alien teams for failed base rushing. .5 t-res for every kill? The economy would obviously need tweaking (increasing the tick rate times of RTs most likely) but I think it would be another option you could possibly put on the table to punish failed base rushes.
I guess what i am trying to point out is that the gorge glop wall/hydra is a pretty effective defense against base rushers when assisted by a skulk or two. Marines can't use sentry guns until far too late in the game to make any difference. Why not allow the marines to use them as early base defense just like aliens use hydras.
(I also think the spawn timers are too fast on both aliens and marines, but I'm not sure how much better this could be tweaked in the upcoming 2-3 weeks.)
It's obvious that mass appeal is important for making NS2 sell well and maintain a casual scene, but sometimes good balance and strategic depth means that you make players do things that might not be immediately fun, like waiting to respawn, sitting in an Onos' stomach, or doing anti-structure grunt work. The threat of not-fun situations makes the other situations all the more enjoyable, the danger of an all-in or risky push all the more real. I feel like mass appeal and high balance clash in these regards, and I'm not sure what to do about it.
Personally, I've never minded waiting 15-20 seconds to respawn in other fps games I've played, because I know the spawn time is long for a reason. Usually because our team is getting hammered or because we've entered the home stretch to win. I think assuming players will hate NS2 because they have to sit around and be gestated (or digested) is giving your players too little credit; there will always be people that hate the game for some reason or another, but most intelligent games have an attention span that exceeds ten seconds, and I don't feel that it's wise to balance and design a game around the ones that don't.
Maybe, if 1.0 arrives and these issues show no signs of changing, we can come together as a competitive community and just throw together a mod that balances NS2 for competitive play. We've already got everything from CO to NS2C running around. How hard can it be?
We squared off a 4 man push right back at them while having the best shooter on RT duty and scouting.
Beacons are still really easy to be forced and stunt the Marine economy early. Allowing a beacon cancel will be an improvement imo.
The problem is that a failed early rush in SC2 is in 90% of the cases a lost game since you can't keep up with the economy of the player successfully repelling your attack.
The only downsides of early rushing in NS2 are no hydra/clog defense on the harvesters and/or second hive and the potential of a counter-rush with egg lock, though the latter is only possible with close spawns and if you win the 4v6 or 5v6 teamfight against the wave spawn (4v6 would be a safe counter-rush with one capping the rest of the map) with at least 2 players surviving. If you just do a single rush intead of two in a row, you could still be able to have hydra+clog defenses up in time.
The problem is that a failed early rush in SC2 is in 90% of the cases a lost game since you can't keep up with the economy of the player successfully repelling your attack.
The only downsides of early rushing in NS2 are no hydra/clog defense on the harvesters and/or second hive and the potential of a counter-rush with egg lock, though the latter is only possible with close spawns and if you win the 4v6 or 5v6 teamfight against the wave spawn (4v6 would be a safe counter-rush with one capping the rest of the map) with at least 2 players surviving. If you just do a single rush intead of two in a row, you could still be able to have hydra+clog defenses up in time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's pretty much the point; aliens know they can rush because they don't have a fear of a backstab or a successful marine counterrush. Make aliens more vulnerable to an early rush and you'd see much less of them.
The game now ends once the marines have no Command Station(s). This means an early basetrade situation cannot go in favor of the marines.
I think the game shouldn't end if the CS is destroyed. Maybe once all structures are destroyed, so marines can drop and defend an rt or armory. But i'd really prefer the way NS1 did it, maybe with auto parasite on all remaining marines, once CS is destroyed, so vent camping can be denied easier.
Suggestion for spawn:
I think returning to single alien spawn, or maybe pair spawns could help.
But if wavespawn stays:
I don't know if as a marine there's a way to figure out when the next spawn wave comes, but i think if UWE stays at wavespawn, this would be a way to allow marines to still pressure the hive, without being totally destroyed by the wavespawn... Some kind of warning, maybe a hivesound, or just a little timer like 3..2..1..: massacre.
Other than that:
+1 buff CS Hitpoints
+1 instant welders (with armory)
edit: restructured for readability.